SONNET.

With how sad steps, O moon! thou climbst the skies,
How silently, and with how wan a face!
What! may it be that even in heavenly place
That busy archer his sharp arrow tries?
Sure, if that long-with-love acquainted eyes
Can judge of love, thou feel'st a lover's case!
I read it in thy looks; thy languished grace
To me,
that feel the like, thy state descries.
Then, even of fellowship, O moon, tell me
Is constant love deemed there but want of wit?
Are beauties there as proud as here they be?

Do they above love to be loved, and yet

Those lovers scorn whom that love doth possess?

Do they call virtue there ungratefulness ?-Sir P. Sydney.

A CITY SHOWER.

Brisk Susan whips her linen from the rope,
While the first drizzling shower is borne aslope;
Such is that sprinkling, which some careless quean
Flirts on you from her mop-but not so clean:
You fly, invoke the gods; then, turning, stop
To rail; she, singing, still whirls on her mop.

*

To shops in crowds the dazzled females fly,
Pretend to cheapen goods, but nothing buy.-Swift.

HELL (ALLEGORICALLY DESCRIBED).

And first within the porch and jaws of Hell
Sat deep Remorse of Conscience, all besprent
With tears and to herself oft would she tell
Her wretchedness, and, cursing, never stent
To sob and sigh, but ever thus lament

With thoughtful care; as she, tho' all in vain,
Would wear and waste continually in pain.

Her eyes unsteadfast, rolling here and there,

Whirled on each place, as place that vengeance brought, So was her mind continually in fear,

Tost and tormented with the tedious thought

Of those detested crimes that she had wrought:

With dreadful cheer, and looks thrown to the sky,

Wishing for death, and yet she could not die.-T. Sackville.

TO AN EARLY PRIMROSE.

Mild offspring of a dark and sullen sire!
Whose modest form, so delicately fine,
Was nursed in whirling storms,
And cradled on the winds!

Thee, when young spring first questioned winter's sway,
And dared the sturdy blusterer to the fight,
Thee on this bauk he threw,

To mark his victory!

In this low vale, the promise of the year,
Serene, thou openest to the nipping gale,
Unnoticed and alone,

Thy tender elegance.

So virtue blooms, brought forth amid the storms
Of chill adversity, in some lone walk

Of life she rears her head,

Obscure and unobserved.

SPRING.

The north-east spends his rage; he now, shut
Within his iron cave, the effusive south

up

Warms the wide air, and o'er the void of heaven
Breathes the big clouds with vernal showers distent.
At first, a dusky wreath they seem to rise,
Scarce staining ether, but by swift degrees
In heaps on heaps the doubled vapour sails
Along the loaded sky, and, mingling deep,

Sets on the horizon round, a settled gloom.-Jas. Thomson.

RULE BRITANNIA.

When Britain first at Heaven's command, &c.-J. Thomson.

PLEASURE AND PAIN.

Venomous thorns that are so sharp and keen
Bear flowers, we see, full fresh and fair of hue;

Poison is also put in medicine,

And unto man his health doth oft renew.

*

Then if that this be true,

I trust some time

my harm may be my health,

Since every woe is joinéd with some wealth (good).

LIFE.

-Sir T. Wyatt.

My heart leaps up when I behold

A rainbow in the sky;

So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;

So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!

The child is father of the man;
And I would wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.

-Wm. Wordsworth.

While every bleaching breeze that on her blows
Chastens her spotless purity of breast,

And hardens her to bear

Serene the ills of life.-Henry Kirke White.

A DIRGE.

Farewell!

Sweet groves to you!

Yon hills that highest dwell,

And all yon humble vales, adieu !
Yon wanton brooks and solitary rocks,

My dear companions all, and you my tender flocks! Farewell my pipe! and all those pleasing songs whose moving strains Delighted once the fairest nymphs that dance upon the plains. You discontents, whose deep and ever deadly smart Have without pity broke the truest heart; Sighs, tears, and every sad annoy,

The seas are quiet when the winds give o'er;
So calm are we when passions are no more.
For then we know how vain it was to boast
Of fleeting things too certain to be lost;
Clouds of affection from our younger eyes
Conceal that emptiness which age descries.
The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed,
Lets in new light through chinks that time has made.
Stronger by weakness, wiser men become

As they draw near to their eternal home:

Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view
That stand upon the threshold of the new.-E. Waller.

NIGHT THOUGHTS ON TIME.

The bell strikes one! We take no note of time
But from its loss: to give it then a tongue

Is wise in man. As if an angel spoke,

I hear the solemn sound. If heard aright,

It is the knell of my departed hours.

Where are they? With the years beyond the flood.

It is the signal that demands despatch:

How much is to be done! my hopes and fears

Start up alarmed, and o'er life's narrow verge
Look down-on what? a fathomless abyss,
A dread eternity: how surely mine!

And can eternity belong to me?

Poor pensioner on the bounties of an hour?-E. Young.

School method and management.

Besides "Common Objects," or "Object Lessons," or "Common Things," or "General Knowledge," other subjects are taught in gallery lessons, those subjects that do not require much individual attention, viz., grammar, geography, and history. The specific subjects also should be partly taught in class, but not wholly. It is here desirable to avoid two extremes.

(1) If such subjects are taught orally only, it will be found that the class does not know how to spell the words employed, especially the technical ones. The old complaint against learning catechism will be justified ("Our fa' chart neven," &c.)

(2) The use of books by the student himself as the means of after education, which is the principal benefit of a school, is ignored. A child should be taught in school life to read with such facility, and comprehension, and comfort, and love of reading, that on leaving school he may never leave off the habit of reading. The other extreme is reading books so as to get only "words, words, words," glib repetition of set phrases accompanied by no ideas.

METHODS OF CLASS TEACHING.-These have been somewhat anticipated in dealing with objects and aims of class teaching, but the following remarks may be useful:-Let the children be seated, and let the teacher herself stand so as to command the whole class, and have the black-board on her left. The class should be all centre. Take care that the right flank, which is apt to be lost sight of, should be in the eye of the teacher. Give a moment of quietness at the commencement to still the class, and hush its spontaneity, as a good speaker does. The black-board should not be used as a refuge for the incapacity of the teacher. Do not make this a screen for weakness, as it often is. It should hold the mirror up to the class, giving merely an outline at the end of what has been done. When the teacher does turn round to the black-board she should go to sleep with one eye open. The class ought never under any circumstances to be out of the eye of the teacher. Don't let a few bright children get all the instruction. The best teacher is the one who knows best each child in the class. Do not be drawn away by the children, or your own love of illustration, from the main subject of your lesson. Anybody can give a lesson for an hour on a given subject; it wants some self-control to do it in twenty minutes. Some teachers wallow and splash about like whales, instead of flying straight to the mark. Avoid the pernicious hábit of playing mousie to the cat, in which little scraps of information are given to the child, and immediately extorted back by a question, as, Alfred was a great man. What was Alfred, children? But children learn nothing in this except to grow up with a dissipated attention. On the other hand, don't air your knowledge to the class, nor attempt Johnsonian sentence making.

Mistakes most commonly made (gallery lessons):

(1) Instead of teaching, collective lessons are too frequently exami nations. But these lessons should be given on the assumption that the study is unknown; still questions may be used (a) to test intelligence, (b) to keep up attention, (c) to see whether class has learned the instruction given at the end of each sub-section.

(2) Technical terms should be rarely used, and never until the notions attached to them are familiar; such technical terms include transparent, opaque, brittle, &c. But what is technical to infants should not be so to older children. Avoid the opposite error of ignoring terms, as transparent. Older children must learn these; they are a part of the language, and long words are not necessarily hard words either in reading or in speech.

(3) Don't give children spoon meat when they can digest stronger. (4) Some classes are dinned with talk. The children are not taught, they are lectured or talked at. There is no break in a too fluent discourse; the class is looked on as a receptacle into which knowledge can be poured, not as a complex mind that has to wrestle.

(5) Don't teach black-board instead of the class. The black-board has its abuses as well as its uses. Its uses are, (a) for side illustrations, spelling, sketchings; (b) to mark out the skeleton of lesson. Its abuses are, (a) it detracts the attention of teachers from the class; (b) Unless the teacher can see round the corner it promotes talking, disorder, and inattention. (c) It wastes the teacher's time.

III. HINTS.-These have been sufficiently dealt with in preceding remarks.

DISCIPLINE.

Discipline viewed subjectively is the active instrument by which good order, &c., is maintained. Viewed objectively it is the result of this special work of the teacher. Thus we say-(1) "The teacher's discipline keeps the school machine noiselessly at work." (2) The master could not maintain discipline.

There is a third way in which the word is used, as, "Miss, please take the discipline of the school."

Objects arrived at in discipline:-I. Order. II. Quietness. III. Attention. IV. Obedience. V. Industry. VI. Moral discipline, good habits. Before taking up each of these we may point out that discipline depends on (a) the teacher; (b) his surroundings. These (b) are mainly beyond the teacher's control, and depend on size and shape of school; presence or want of class-room; government regulations fixing maximum width of schools; proximity of noisy streets; over-crowding beyond teacher's control; proper apparatus.

A. Means to secure good discipline.-(1) Good organization, especially in the matter of a distribution of staff. Of course the most skilful teachers will be put to the most difficult work, i.e. the lower standards, taking care of course the IV., V., and VI. teacher has an amount of knowledge beyond the modicum of the class. This distribution also should allow of teachers being shifted from class to class in the different years of apprenticeship, and from class to class according to subjects they can best deal with.

This professional method is the basis of organization in secondary schools, where there is the Mathematical, Classical, Modern, English, Music, Drawing, and Writing masters. This plan can be carried out in our elementary schools more than at present.

B. Arrangement of time table.-This should secure as the first essential silent lesson, side by side with lessons necessitating noise, i.e. isolation as far as it can be got in a single room. The next essential